Final Fantasy 14 'world-first' raiders caught cheating immediately thanks to one pixel in a screenshot. This is the third time in a row that an Ultimate race has been scuffed.

Final Fantasy 14's latest Ultimate raid was released this week and there is already a controversy. If you're not familiar with Ultimate raids, they are the most difficult endgame challenge that an Eorzean could face. They can be tough fights which can take months for the average Joe to learn and defeat. World-first raiders who block off a week to do Ultimates will be faster, but they are still tough gauntlets that test their mettle. Teams called'statics,' assemble to work long shifts and sacrifice sleep and sanity in order to be the first.

All of this is to say that they're a challenge worthy of a world first race. Frosty from MogTalk, who tracks world's first racing, says that GRIND was the 'victors' of this race. The undisputed champions received GGs and--wait a minute, what is that pixel in middle of the screenshot, you ask?

The memes from r/ffxiv are already flowing in

GRIND deleted the screenshot and forced me to share some top-tier jokes instead. However, a single pixel on the screengrab of the celebration served as a smoking weapon. It's a sign of the Pixel Perfect Plus plug-in, which shows the exact hitbox of your character for the purpose of avoiding AoE attacks. This is huge when you're playing an Ultimate, as deadly mechanics can turn the entire floor into instant death areas. Naughty, naughty.

Final Fantasy 14's Terms of Service prohibit third-party plugins, no matter how cool or useful they may be. Square Enix's 'don't act like an idiot' attitude towards these plugins is why they are still widely used.

The dev team will not spy on your computer using intrusive anti-cheat programs, but they mayban if you are clearly cheating. You can use a damage meter to track your progress, but if someone flames you in a dungeon because they have low DPS you will be suspended.

Frosty has already disqualified GRIND in this case: "I had my team research the plugin used by the team, and its capabilities make it eligible for disqualification on the MogTalk Leaderboard. GRIND does not approve of this member's use of the plugin, and they do not agree with his actions.

MogTalk's tracker (which is a fan project, and a huge effort on the part of the community) allows for world-first clears that aren’t streamed. This isn't unreasonable because raiders may want to avoid sharing intel with their direct competitors, but it makes cheating easier.

This isn't the first time this has happened. In 2022, raiders of the Dragonsong’s Reprise (Ultimate), were caught using plugins. In 2023, Square stripped the first world winners of The Omega Protocol (Ultimate), of their achievements and titles.

It is mind-boggling that these people, despite using plugins, are still at the top of their class and have spent dozens of hours on the challenge. They are also terrible at cheating. It's like an Olympic athlete being caught because they forgot to remove their steroids from the kitchen counter before taking a selfie.

It also makes be nervous that Yoshi P will one day have had enough. While I would never use plugins myself, the majority of third-party tools are incredibly harmless. This umbrella includes speech bubbles, cosmetic adjustments, outfit designers, furniture placement assistance, and more.

Square hasn't yet fixed the weird animation locks which break certain jobs in anything other than blissful fibre optic. Infrastructure specific to a country is not a problem of skill.

Square is unlikely to impose any real restrictions on the ecosystem. It's possible that the development team could simply stop caring about first world races. Yoshi-P stated in 2022 that "if our recognition encourages excess competition and controversy, to the extent players resort to third party tools, we may regretfully have to reconsider making remarks [about world-first races] in future." This is why we can't get nice things.